Richard Stephens became the focus of international media attention in 2009 for his research on the psychological benefits of swearing as a response to pain. Now, fresh from winning the 2014 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, Richard`s first popular science book uncovers other pieces of surprising & occasionally bizarre scientific enquiry showing that what we at first perceive as bad can, in fact, be good. More pub conversation than science book, Richard`s writing style is very accessible
- both engaging & humorous. Think wasting time is bad? Not always! Research shows that taking time out can help you solve difficult problems. & if you can`t be bothered tidying up, well fine, research shows that people are more creative in a messy environment. Swearing is rude but research shows that in some situations it can be a form of politeness. Swearing can also be used as a tool of persuasion. Black Sheep casts a slant on a range of human experiences from life to death, sex to romance, from speed thrills to halting boredom & from drinking alcohol (in moderation) to headily excessive bad language. This is a fascinating left-field tour of the world of psychological science. Get ready for the many hidden benefits of being bad that you really won`t have seen coming.
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A man is making a crude leather mask with an iron spike fixed in the middle of the forehead. It is a 'death mask', once used by Icelandic farmers to slaughter calves, & he has revenge in mind. Meanwhile, a school reunion has left Sigurdur Oli unhappy with life in the police force. While Iceland is enjoying an economic boom, his relationship is on the rocks & soon even his position in the CID is compromised after he agrees to visit a couple of blackmailers as a favour to a friend, & walks in just as a woman is beaten unconscious. When she dies, Sigurdur Oli has a murder investigation on his hands. Moving from the villas of Reykjavik's banking elite to a sordid basement flat, Black Skies is a superb story of greed, pride & murder from one of Europe's most successful crime writers. ...

Detective Sigurdur Oli is in trouble. After a school reunion exposes the chasm between his life & those of his much more successful contemporaries, leaving him bitter & resentful, one of his old friends asks him to pay an unofficial visit to a couple of blackmailers. He readily agrees, only to arrive to find one of the pair lying in a pool of blood. When the victim dies in hospital, Sigurdur Oli is faced with investigating a murder without revealing his own reasons for being present at the murder scene. Moving from the villas of Reykjavik`s banking elite to a sordid basement flat, Black Skies is a superb story of greed, pride & murder from one of Europe`s most successful crime writers. ...

1977. Poised between the secular values of socialism & the conservatism of a tenuously balanced government, Istanbul is a fractured city haunted by demons of its own making. Along with thousands of other left-wing activists, Oak`s interest in politics leads him to join the annual May Day rallies. There he encounters Zuhal, a fearless girl with a gun. As battles rage between nationalists & socialists, Oak witnesses the violent suppression of dissident minorities by his fellow citizens. The bewitching Zuhal begins to shape his ideals, bringing him face to face with disillusionment, & death. ...

` When I first lived in Ukraine, I was preoccupied with its ideas of the past & future. Once Maidan started, there was nothing but the present; every hour held the possibility of transformation, & of terrible violence...` After leaving university in 2004, Sophie Pinkham moved to Siberia to volunteer for the Red Cross, tackling the rising AIDS crisis by folding origami tulips. Over the next decade, she travelled & worked across the post-Soviet world, from Lake Baikal to the Black Sea, at a time when the young countries of the region were struggling to define their new identities. Black Square is a multidimensional portrait of a period of tumultuous change, & of a generation that came of age after the fall of the USSR, only to see protestors shot on Kiev`s main square, Crimea annexed by Russia, & a bitter war in eastern Ukraine. We meet a charismatic doctor fighting the AIDS epidemic even as he struggles with his own drug addiction; an iconoclastic artist with a penchant for public nudity; & a Russian-Jewish clarinettist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. With a deep knowledge of the literature & legends of the region, & a keen outsider`s eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Black Square delivers an indelible impression of a region, & a world, on the brink. ...

In an unspecified setting, the stream-of-consciousness narrative of this cult novel traces the fortunes of a group of anarchists in revolt against a military-fascist capitalist opposition. The protagonist is photojournalist Chris, whose camera lens becomes the device through which the plot is cleverly unravelled. In Dambudzo Marechera's second experimental novel, he parodies African nationalist & racial identifications as part of an argument that notions of an 'essential African identity' were often invoked to authorise a number of totalitarian regimes across Africa. Such irreverent, avant-garde literature was criticised upon publication in Zimbabwe in 1980, & Black Sunlight was banned on charges of ' Euromodernism' & as a challenge to the concept of nation-building in the newly independent country. ...

January, 1982. Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor
- covert stammerer & reluctant poet
- anticipates a stultifying year in his backwater

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A tale of the cruelties that took place during the 1947 partition of India, ” Black Taj” is a tragic story about young love s struggle to cross the Indian caste divide. An only child, Simi grows up comfortably in the city of Atmapuri enjoying certainty in her future ahead. Then, unexpectedly, everything changes. Her city, overtaken by the riots that have periodically gripped India since Britain s abrupt withdrawal, is threatening to fall apart along the lines of religion, caste, & community. Shortly before turning twenty-five, Simi meets a wonderful young man. Although he was also raised in Atmapuri, his caste means that he is in many ways from a different world. Without warning, Simi faces difficult new choices but when the past is always present, it can be hard to break free. Against a backdrop of monsoons & heat waves, shanty towns & expensive bungalows, love & tradition, & religious conflict & social upheaval, Simi s life will change forever.” ...

A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor Engl&... They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married & buried by the Church. They were paid wages like any other Tudors. The untold stories of the Black Tudors, dazzlingly brought to life by Kaufmann, will transform how we see this most intriguing period of history. ...

Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2018A Book of the Year for the Evening Standard & the Observer A black porter publicly whips a white Englishman in the hall of a Gloucestershire manor house. A Moroccan woman is baptised in a London church. Henry VIII dispatches a Mauritanian diver to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose. From long-forgotten records emerge the remarkable stories of Africans who lived free in Tudor Engl&... They were present at some of the defining moments of the age. They were christened, married & buried by the Church. They were paid wages like any other Tudors. The untold stories of the Black Tudors, dazzlingly brought to life by Kaufmann, will transform how we see this most intriguing period of history. ...